


At 3 AM, the writer awakens.

by indeterminatechange, looktothes_kai (indeterminatechange)



Category: Original Work
Genre: "oh boy it's 4:32 in the morning-- you know what would be a good poem idea?", Poems, Short Stories, a lot of these are feelings-oriented because it really do be like that, i write like a goddamn werewolf, more tags tba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indeterminatechange/pseuds/indeterminatechange, https://archiveofourown.org/users/indeterminatechange/pseuds/looktothes_kai
Summary: A collection of poems and short stories that I've written over the years-- usually during stressful situations or early in the morning.





	1. April Showers : a poem

april showers bring mayflowers

and mayflowers bring illness and disease  
they bring textbook cases of slaughter and tears,  
stories of war,  
a holiday that we all try to forget in the wake of  
family, (slaughtered and left behind)  
friends, (vanished into thin air)  
and food (teaching, taught, stolen)

april showers bring mayflowers

and mayflowers bring solitude and silence  
when we finally study the truth through eyes unblinded by the american educational system  
when we step outside of cinder-block classrooms  
and metal chairs  
and whitewashed walls (and books and movies and views and)  
and years and years of suppression

april showers bring mayflowers

and mayflowers bring  
storms that raise the rivers and creeks on reservations  
(eastern cherokee, coharie, lumbee, meherrin)  
and rains that make me think the sky is crying  
(or maybe the people below are crying, pushed down into the mud of a few acres of land)

april showers bring mayflowers

and mayflowers bring only pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> living on a liberal arts campus and being raised by social-justice oriented parents has filled me with constant rage


	2. A Fresh Start : a poem

rain.  
rain against your arms, your nose, your clothes.  
you laugh out loud at the way the water clings to her eyelashes.  
you spin her, under your arm, wrap an arm around her waist, lean in,

the grocery bags are tucked under your arm, now, and you’re on the way home.  
the streetlights are bright, but they’re not bothersome.  
but there’s another light,  
coming off the road,  
onto the sidewalk,  
right into your eyes and into your groceries and into

your eyes,  
bright fluorescent lights above your head.  
you think you’ve seen something like this before, but you don’t know where or when  
there’s white all around you,  
there’s a girl in the chair.

you see the water, running down her face  
you laugh out loud at the way the water clings to her eyelashes  
you don’t know this girl,  
but, by god, you wish you did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> amnesia.


	3. Focus on the Color : a poem

focus on the color.  
rather than seeing the boxers on the floor,  
or the condom wrappers torn open and left for you to find  
or the scent of strawberry shampoo and expensive chocolates  
or the sheets, stained

focus on the color.

focus on the curtains, sheer pink, with the sun’s first light streaming through  
focus on the blanket, wrapped around your body like a hug that you didn’t know you needed  
focus on the carpet, an off-white, with the stain from the tea from the night  
focus on the night, with the stars-- silver glitter, embedded in blue velvet above your head

focus on the color.  
rather than asking yourself what you could have done to stop this,  
or why this happened to you today, of all days  
or how well that “waterproof” mascara you bought at the drugstore for 2.99 will hold up against this newfound sadness  
or this new hatred

focus on the color.

focus on the doorway that you slowly turn to, heights marked up and down with green sharpie  
focus on the painting, hung on the wall next to it-- apples and sunflowers and a lake, leaves floating on the surface  
focus on the way your chest rises and falls when you find yourself leaning into the walls--  
red.  
red.  
red, like the blood in your veins, running hot  
red, like the fire of rage building back up  
red, like the

focus on the color.  
focus on the sunrise.  
focus on the bags, packed neatly with your clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> : )


	4. Ana : a nonlinear short story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some kinda graphic descriptions

**_It was cold._ **

**_It was empty._ **

**_It was dark._ **

**_And that’s where_ **

**_The memory stops._ **

_ She likes to imagine that it was a good place, despite the cold. It was comforting, somehow-- the layers upon layers of blankets that she would use, curled up in a corner by the barred windows while the rain darkened the sky outside. Maybe she had a cat, in the empty room.  _

**_The cat was white._ **

**_He was fluffy._ **

**_He purred when her hand found his ear._ **

**_They were inseparable._ **

**_And he was her solace in that world._ **

_ She likes to imagine that her little world was safe, too. The cold metal bars were there to keep the world out, not to lock her inside--  _

_ inside, she would wander where she pleased, open and close doors behind her, pull books off of shelves and bring them back to  _

**_her cold_ **

**_dark_ **

**_empty room_ **

_ to read and enjoy in solitude. _

_ Her Solace would climb into her lap, and they’d stay that way for hours and hours and she would laugh and he would sleep and everything was perfect just the way it was. She would smile. _

**_A_ **

**_N_ **

  
  


_ She likes to imagine that there was a woman, too, one who pulled her close when the light drizzle turned into a storm, loud and threatening. The woman would stroke her hair, pull the blankets a little tighter, and whisper a name she had long forgotten. It disappeared into the silence, and changed nothing. _

****

**_A_ **

_ She likes to imagine that her window overlooked a lake-- in the colder months, it would freeze over, and she would think about how much she wanted to go out and ice skate. The very idea was preposterous. _

_ She’d get injured, or stolen, or killed. _

**_And then_ **

**_where would_ **

**_she be?_ **

_ She likes to  _

**_REMEMBER_ **

that there were others in the empty room. A little girl, her hair wheat-gold, her body thin and pale. An older boy, his wrists bruised from weeks of being chained. A mother, eyes still open, body cold and unmoving. A little boy, still crying when he was dragged down the hal

  
  


_ She likes to imagine that the room wasn’t empty. She likes to imagine that the windows weren’t barred. She likes to imagine that the room wasn’t cold. She likes to imagine that there was a fireplace, always lit and crackling, full of life. She likes to imagine that the room wasn’t dark. She likes to imagine that people were always smiling. She likes to imagine that she could breathe. She likes to imagine they didn’t all disappear. She likes to imagine that she wasn’t the only survivor. She likes to imagine that _

**_she is never alone_ **

when her arms ache from staying frozen for weeks on end, the mother rubs feeling back, the son unlocks the chains

when her stomach turns back on her, the boy brings her a feast of bugs and corn, found in the (open) empty room

when her eyes burn and her head goes fuzzy and everything seems broken, there’s a light, and a laugh, and an encouragement to keep imagining that everything was okay. 

_ There’s a key, somewhere. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good luck figuring out what the hell is going on in this story-- feel free to post guesses in the comments


End file.
